Name: Jonathan Stover Source: unca20060807.htmYou cheeky monkeys should stop worrying about Mel Gibson and check out the tv show Slings and Arrows if you haven't already. Season 3 just started here in Canada, and it's hilarious and moving as always. Season 1 has the bonus of co-starring Rachel MacAdams right before she hit it big.

Seriously -- if you like theatre, you'll find a lot of stuff to love, and if you don't like theatre, you'll still find stuff to love. And fans of Kids in the Hall or Due South take note -- Mark McKinney and Paul Gross are the male leads for this show about the New Burbage (ie. Stratford) Festival and its annual travails putting on its schedule of plays. The Season 2 climax, in which Macbeth premiered, was absolutely hilarious.

Name: Eric Martin Source: unca20060807.htmTurns out the arresting officer was Jewish, which might explain Mel's non sequitorial rave-up. Maybe he's got some "gaydar" for Jewish people that is especially attuned when he's had too much Mezcal.

Mel has just checked himself into rehab. Next stop: Webderland, home for any social misfit who may wander our way...

Name: Barney Dannelke Source: unca20060807.htmReaders of Harlan know that he is quite fond of the epigram as a little applied frosting on his fiction - and even some of his non-fiction for that matter. I love epigrams and it is in no small part due to reading a steady diet of them with many of my favorite writers since I was, oh, 14 or thereabouts. They were there before then but reading things like Harlan's The Deathbird and his PAINGOD collection probably got me to thinking about them.

Nowadays - because I am insane - when I hear a good quote or read an epigram or hear a certain kind of lyric (and god knows as I age it's getting harder for me to "hear" a lyric, at least the first time through) I think to myself, "oh, that would be a good epigram if I were writing about X or Y or Z" or X,Y & Z are usually either Mark Twain or our patron. Don't worry - I'm getting to it. Lately I've had some rock an roll lyrics in my head and EVERY time I hear them I think of Harlan.

What I thought I would do is just give 2 of them and ask if this has ever happened to you in a Harlan-centric manner. Here are my examples. Awhile back Doug Lane and I were in Painesville and although I never mentioned it to him the soundtrack in the back of my head was THE PRETENDERS and particularly from
MY CITY WAS GONE;

I WENT BACK TO OHIO
BUT MY CITY WAS GONE
THERE WAS NO TRAIN STATION
THERE WAS NO DOWNTOWN
SOUTH HOWARD HAD DISAPPEARED
ALL MY FAVORITE PLACES
MY CITY HAD BEEN PULLED DOWN
REDUCED TO PARKING SPACES
A, O, WAY TO GO OHIO

The other one - and this one has been spinning in the Gulliver for MONTHS is Fiona Apple's EXTRAORDINARY MACHINE;

I certainly haven't been shopping for any new shoes
And I certainly haven't been spreading myself around
I still only travel by foot and by foot it's a slow climb
But I'm good at being uncomfortable so I can't stop changing all the time

I noticed that my opponent is always on the go
And won't go slow so as not to focus and I notice
He'll hitch a ride with any guide as long as they go fast from whence he came
But he's no good at being uncomfortable so he can't stop staying exactly the same

If there was a better way to go then it would find me
I can't help it the road just rolls out behind me
Be kind to me or treat me mean
I'll make the most of it I'm an extraordinary machine

**********************************************************

Particularly the last two lines which I picture Harlan carrying around like a banner in life's parade.

So, if you have a rock & roll lyric in your head that you associate with Harlan, as a distraction from the heat I'll be facing out of doors the next two days, I'd love to see them.

[caveat - both of those lyrics were pulled from arist's sites or record company sites. Neither is complete. The Ohio is one third of the lyric and the Apple is about half. I think we;re in "fair use" territory. If not my sincere apologies and just quote the artist and title and I'll figure it out.]

Name: Brian Siano Source: unca20060807.htmEric Martin writes:
"Turns out the arresting officer was Jewish, which might explain Mel's non sequitorial rave-up. Maybe he's got some "gaydar" for Jewish people that is especially attuned when he's had too much Mezcal."

Gosh, that changes _everything_. It was the _cop's_ fault for _looking Jewish!_ Wasn't he aware that his mere _presence_, coupled with his powerful Semitic features, turns good, decent family men like Mel into raving Jew-haters? How dare he stop a guy who's speeding at 80 miles per hour, find that he's obviously severely inebriated, and _expose_ him to his Jewishness? Why, Eric's right! It's the _cop's_ fault for making Mel Gibson into an anti-Semite!

Name: rich Source: unca20060807.htmNo, Brian, you big goof. All Eric was saying was that the anti-Semitic statements, which seemed to come out of left field for the drunken knucklehead that is Mel Gibson, was that the cop was Jewish, thus explaining the WHY of the particular bigoted statements. If the cop was black, that would be the explanation if Gibson had uttered something about niggars.

I see from the newswire that you are correct and the arresting officer was Jewish. I have absolutely no idea what relevance this has on his anti-semitic outburst.

Your implication that Gibson has "J-dar" rather than "gaydar" as an explanation for what caused his tirade is insulting as is your implication that this was caused by his being drunk and stupid.

The only thing the alcohol provided was a lowering of his defenses so that his anti-semitism had a chance to leak out.

At least there is one good outcome from this arrest, ABC cancelled Gibson's Holocaust project. Considering his views, I think he might have chosen to represent the Holocaust as a fantasy, rather than an attempted genocide.

Mark, Brian. Eric was noting that Gibson's tirade seemed to be an out-of-the-blue attack upon the Jewish. The fact that the arresting officer is indeed Jewish doesn't excuse Gibson one whit, it simply gives a context in which the non-sequitor now has a reference. I don't read a single inferrence in Eric's post that suggests it's in any way other than Gibson's fault/action.

Berke Breathed, creator and grand poobah of the wonderful 'Bloom County', once coined the term "offensensitivity" to describe the extreme overreaction to a non-existant slight.

> I'm becoming curious as to what exactly you are doing,
> David-- will the new GLASS TEAT edition feature footnotes
> by you or Harlan? Are you responsible for the new editions,
> or is Harlan? Are both books getting the same treatment?
> Asimov did all his indexing himself, he didn't trust anyone
> with that. I'm glad Harlan has you.

Thanks. I meant to answer right away, but didn't want to violate the one-a-day rule, and then I forgot.

I'm indexing the Glass Teats, something which somebody should have done 36 years ago, with the first edition, or for any of the two subsequent ones. I had the idea and volunteered to do it right here on the Art Deco Dining Pavilion some time ago (a year, maybe?) and Harlan took up my offer. I'm not "responsible" for the new editions, if you mean to ask whether I'm the publisher or work for it (Charnel House); I'm just an outside, hired gun.

But yes, I'll be doing an index for both books. That's no absolute guarantee they'll APPEAR in both books, but Harlan told me the publisher is willing, and he did send me a copy of the galleys.

I've also incidentally noted proofreading and factual errors, while I was plowing through the galleys -- some of which survived through past editions of the book -- which I've passed along to Harlan and Charnel House.

Name: Todd Cassel Source: unca20060807.htmHoly Sheepshit people, I don't believe a Hollywood moron's anti-semitic remarks have you all up in a tizzy. Who the fuck cares? This coming from a Jew (a very Jewy Jew, mind you, being that I sprung from the loins of a Rabbi): is it so shocking that someone is bigoted just because he is famous? Do you still go to Spike Lee movies.....or listen to Jesse Jackson speeches.....even though they have had their share of anti-semitic remarks?

I do.....not the JJ speeches, but yes I do attend most Spike Lee movies when he's not stumbling around in Nuttyville with shit like He Hate Me. Bamboozled is a find, if anyone can find it.

But I'm getting off the point. A) Mel is anti-semitic. Shock of shocks. Do we have to now debate this ad nauseum because he is famous? Shhh, I'm going to let you in on a little secret....keep it to yourself.....there are a whole bunch of anti-semitic people in the world, and there are a whole bunch of bigoted people in the world who hate other races and religions and facial features. In fact, if you killed everyone in the world who made some form of bigoted remark or had bigoted thoughts in their head, you would probably run out of people to kill by the time you reduced the Earth's population to a coupla thousand (hey, then we save the Environment and Al Gore gets to lead us to safety...huzzah)!

B. Those who are jumping all over Eric Martin's words are bigoted toward Eric Martin. Shit, people, he said nothing wrong. He gave no justification. He made a glancing comment to the fact that Mel's tirade started because he was insulting a Jewish cop. Eric was justifying this, you dolts, he was stating a fact. If the cop was a Siamese Twin, Mel would have probably made some joke about how Siamese Twins own all the banks in the world and run Hollywood.

Yeah, Mel grew up in a home that hated Jews. He was raised by a father that stated that the Jewish population in Poland was reduced because the Jews just decided to leave on their own, and that the Holocaust exists only to raise money for Holocaust Museums (since, hell, those Holocaust museums are raking in more cash that Pirates Of The Carribean II). I guess some of ole daddy rubbed off on the Melster. And he hates Jews. And the world continues to rotate. Must we obsess just because Hollywood Mel hates Jews.....having been educated in the history of my people, I must say that this isn't the first person in the world to express such an opinion.

Now, I must depart. My bank awaits, and I must decide what southern hick to put out of work and take his home.

Name: Jim Davis Source: unca20060807.htmI finally saw A SCANNER DARKLY last night, and . . . god, it was stunning. I had reservations about Richard Linklater's use of Rotoscoping--as a visual technigue, it's always seemed neither fish nor fowl to me--but it lends itself well to Dick's prose, conveying a trippy, slighty ominous vibe that's appropriate for a story of drug addiction gone amok. (The Scramble Suits are especially well-done.) True, there were moments when I wanted to wipe all that digital paint away and see what the actors were doing (I still don't know exactly how Winona Ryder looks these days), but, overall, it enhanced instead of distracting.

The acting, with one exception, was top-notch. Of all the cast, Robert Downey Jr. is getting most of the critical kudos, and he deserves it. I don't know if I ever bought the Greatest Actor of his Generation hype, but his portrayal of James Barris, solipsist and manipulator extrordinaire, is nothing less than masterful. There's a chilling scene where Barris nonchalantly watches a fellow druggie choke to death, and Downey's perfect control of tone makes clear just how much of a sociopath his character is. As for the rest, Woody Harrelson, Rory Cochrane, and Winona Ryder all acquit themselves well, with Ryder especially good as the quintessential Dark-Haired Girl of Dick's novels (albeit with blonde highlights).

As for Keanu Reeves, well, it's not necessarily a put-down when I say he was adequate in the role of Officer Fred/Bob Arctor, narcotics cop, and friend and fellow addict of Barris's. As in the book, Fred goes undercover as Arctor and becomes a hard-core user of Substance-D, a drug which eventually splits the hemispheres in his brain, making him unable to recognize that Fred and Arctor are the same person. (When you learn that Fred is assigned to electronic surveillance of the house Arctor lives in, you get an idea of how tragically fucked-up his situation is.) It's a weighty role, and Reeves mostly does okay, though it's depressing to wonder what another actor (Ed Norton, for example) might've done with it. Reeves' lack of vocal control and facial expressivess sort of work in his favor here, conveying some of Fred/Arctor's brain-damage and confusion, though when he's in scenes with Downey and Harrelson, his limitations as an actor are obvious. Overall, he doesn't drag the film down, though he would've done better in Harrelson's role.

Usually, when Hollywood adapts Dick, they focus on the mind-bending aspects of his work and jettison everything else. Linklater realizes, however, that the reason that Dick's books ARE so trippy is because they're rooted in the mundane. Dull jobs, crappy homes, technology that enervates, the tension in relationships between the sourness of routine and the hope of transcendence . . . A SCANNER DARKLY finally gets that part of Dick right, and it's about time. Dick's humor is captured as well; the audience I was with laughed often and loudly. (The funniest part in the book, Freck's suicide attempt, is translated BEAUTIFULLY.) There's no scimping on the pathos, either, with an ending that's as heart-breaking, yet optimistic, as anything I've seen all year.

Bottom line: it's the best Philip K. Dick adaption yet made. If you have any love for PKD, or you want to escape the doldrums of the summer blockbusters, go see it, with all due haste.